ALLEGANY TERRITORY — The Seneca Nation president and a Seneca Party candidate running for president have issued statements on President Joe Biden’s recent apology for the U.S. policy on Indian boarding schools.
For 150 years ending in the early 1970s, the U.S. had a policy of supporting Indian boarding schools that were designed to separate children from their parents and their culture. Many children were abused and some died at the schools.
During a visit to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona,Biden issued a formal apology to Native Nations within the United States for the federal government’s role in sponsoring, supporting, and operating residential boarding schools which Native students were forced to attend for more than 150 years.
Seneca Nation President Rickey Armstrong, Sr. issued the following statement:
“This is a day that many people thought would never come. More than a century after the United States began its policy of forced assimilation aimed at Native people, a President of the United States has officially acknowledged and apologized for the atrocities this country forced upon countless Native communities, families, and children – atrocities whose deep, damaging effects our communities live with to this day.
“President Biden’s apology on behalf of the United States is welcome and stirs a mix of emotions. The President’s words bring a measure of relief and validation that contribute in some way to the healing that survivors of the residential boarding school era and Native communities across the country continue to seek.
“For more than 150 years, thousands of Native children were forced to attend the residential schools. For nearly all of them, the schools were a doorway to hatred, mental and physical abuse, and violence. Instead of having their minds opened and nurtured, they were systematically stripped of their clothes, their traditional language and culture, and often even their names. For far too many, the schools are where their lives ended.
“The government called this movement assimilation. We know it better as attempted eradication. Piece by piece, the schools supported by the federal government and others tried to rip and strip away every connection those children had to their culture. The schools wanted to change the children so that no piece of their identity as Native people would remain.
“This dark, deadly, and shameful treatment of our people, and the intergenerational trauma it caused, must be widely acknowledged, shared, discussed, and taught. The victims and survivors of the residential boarding schools were taught that they did not matter. They do matter, and the federal government must accept what it did to those children and to our communities.
“While we are grateful to finally hear the United States acknowledge its actions, everyone can agree that this apology could have and should have come sooner. The despicable treatment of Native children at the schools was carried out over several decades and multiple administrations. Several more administrations have come and gone without taking ownership of what happened, even as other governments around the world have finally reckoned with their treatment of Native and Indigenous people in their own countries.
“Now, at long last, the United States has finally broken its silence.
“President Biden’s words are appreciated. Now we need action that speaks far louder than words.
“Our communities are still broken because of what we were forced to endure. The disintegration of Native languages and customs, along with the strain caused to family structures, have spanned generations. Our pain is still very real. Many people still carry the hurt and darkness with them every day. Our communities still bear the weight of the trauma. Our path toward healing continues.
“The federal government needs to support our communities with action and policy that address the long-lasting impacts of an era that should have never happened, pain and abuse that should have never been suffered, and young lives that never should have ended,
” Armstrong concluded.
J.C. Seneca, the Seneca Party candidate in Tuesday’s presidential election also issued a statement regarding Biden’s apology to all Native People regarding the role of the federal government in operating boarding schools. “This apology by President Biden is a step forward in acknowledging the mistreatment of Native people, and especially Native children, throughout the United States,” Seneca stated. “Yet the reality is the federal and state governments are continuing to traumatize Native people. “No matter the level of government, it is obvious by their actions that they will not be happy until they take our lands and extinguish us as a people. That’s why all Native people must stay vigilant and united to combat against the traumas that continue to be inflicted upon our communities. Not only for today, but for future generations to come, Seneca said.”
In December of 2021, Seneca said he was invited by U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, to be part of a National Native American Tribal Consultation on Indian Boarding Schools. The purpose of the consultation was to gather firsthand information on Indian Boarding Schools across the United States where over 19,000 children were forced to reside and, according to the National Park Service, “… faced assimilation, abuse, discrimination and ethnocide on a scale never seen.”
Seneca delivered a 17-page report to Sec. Haaland fully detailing the establishment of, “Missionary Schools,” which evolved to Native Boarding Schools operated by the US Government. In that report he spotlighted the Thomas Indian School, which was located on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in Erie County from 1875-1957. Seneca credits Haaland with President Biden’s awareness and apology for the trauma inflicted in such schools—the first time in U.S. history that such presidential action has taken place.
“Sec. Haaland has been a big part of ongoing investigations of Indian Boarding Schools happening across this nation,” Seneca stated. “It is good that she stood alongside President Biden today in Arizona, representing Native people and working to bring our truth to light.
“Yet here in New York State the government is still taking actions that are causing trauma among our people. Actions like freezing our Nation’s bank accounts and stealing our money from those accounts. Money that our people are entitled to and need to live.
“Also, New York State government officials have negotiated in bad faith, and done everything in their power to delay resolution of the Class 3 Compact. It’s a delay of almost two years that has not only caused trauma within our Seneca Nation but has also negatively impacted New York State people who work at and supply those casinos. “All people need and deserve to have financial stability. In this case, the New York State Government is doing all they can to prevent that from happening,” Seneca stated.
